Blog Ekkehard Friebe

Nachstehend bringe ich auszugsweise eine Studie von Mogens True Wegener (Dänemark):

Quelle: RELATIVITY & COSMOLOGY

Kommentar:
„These papers contain the reflections of a Danish philosopher of science on basic issues of physics. They represent the British Tradition in relativity and relativistic cosmology as opposed to that of Einstein.“

Zitat:

IDEAS OF RELATIVITY: INTERPRETATIONS IN CONFLICT
The PIRT-Conferences 1988-1998. PIRT-Proc. 1998, Imperial College London
Mogens True Wegener, emeritus professor of philosophy, Aarhus University, Danmark.

As one of the rather few philosophers attending the biennial conferences on the Physical Interpretations of Relativity Theory from their start in 1988 until 1998, ten years later, I would like to take this opportunity to assess the import of the various contributions offered by these conferences from a philosophical point of view, in order to give some clues as regards the perspectives of future progress in this field of physics. Throughout the past decade all our conferences have been sponsored by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science. For that reason it may not seem imposterous for a philosopher to assume this task. 

[…………………….] 

The Urge for Metaphysics as Ontology

Naïve Formalism (vulgar Platonism/Pythagoreanism) seeks to unveil the „natural geometry“ immanent in the depths of Nature
Naïve RealismÎMaterialism (the Ionians, Democritus, or Descartes) seeks to disclose the „underlying reality“, the „hidden substance“, of Nature

How do these two positions manifest themselves in the context of our conferences?
This can best be illustrated by reference to a now famous little book entitled The Logic of Special Relativity (Cambridge 1967), due to one of our most prominent collegues and friends, the late Professor Simon Prokhovnik. In this classical monograph Professor Prokhovnik discussed three apparently very different interpretations of SR – the spacetime geometrical approach, the approach of kinematic relativity, and the aether-theoretical approach, which he prefers. Now, for my part, I prefer to view the kinematic approach as a proper mean of the other two: 

1) The SpaceTime Approach (orthodox) – seeks the inherent structure of space
2) The Substratum Approach (heterodox) – seeks an ultimate substance, or frame
3) The Constructive Approach (kinematic) – invents world-models from first principles

However, it is characteristic of the presentations and discussions given at these conferences that a majority of the participants are adherents of realism and the aether-theoretical approach and that a considerable part subscribe to formalism and the spacetime geometrical approach, while almost nobody, except myself, pays any interest to the approach of kinematic relativity. This I find regrettable for at least two, in my own view very important, reasons.

First, a dogmatic accentuation of one of these opposites to the exclusion of the other would at once take us into that philosophical kind of naïveté which I have rightly denounced. I fully recognize the value of the formalistic approach of spacetime geometry as a technical instrument of relativistic physics. Only I would follow Professor André Mercier who in his 1994 lecture on „The Reconstruction of Spacetime as Timespace“ claimed that time should be considered more important than space, whence ’spacetime‘ should be re-baptized ‚timespace‘. But it is illegitimate to hypostasize geometry into a structure that is immanent in Nature itself. Likewise, I fully approve the value of the realistic approach of aether-theory as a heuristic device to be exploited in order to further the fruitful development of relativity theory; but it is also illegitimate to hypostasize the aether into a substance underlying the existence of Nature. However, since the relevant questions of modern science are questions of structure rather than questions of substance, it is easier to unmask the mistake of realism than the fault of formalism. But, viewed as extremes, the two positions are glaring transgressions of the limits of science. As shown convincingly by Kant, all sober science should abstain from statements of ontology. Hence, if one of these approaches is viewed in spendid isolation from the other, and its content is elevated to the exclusive status of Ultimate Reality, or Essence of Nature, then I must object. Philosophically, this inborn ontological urge, this drift towards a deep metaphysics – in short, this deep naïveté – is not only misleading in the sense that it takes us out in a swamp in order to leave us there with a mess of inconsistencies and unsolved problems: it is also dangerous in the more serious sense that it tempts us to seek a refuge in scientific dogma.

Second, I suspect that the conflicting attitudes, that of formalism and that of realism, secretly uphold a sort of unholy alliance in the sense that they conspire to ascribe a conceptual primacy to space rather than to time. In this they just follow the lead of Einstein who explicitly stated that his scientific programme was to reduce everything in physics to spacelike concepts; but in that respect, at least, the tradition from Einstein is obsolete. As a historian of ideas I can affirm with confidence that, just as it was the unique feat of the renaissance to discover space – mind the introduction of perspective in the arts – so it is up to our own century to discover time (cf. the telling title: From Being to Becoming, given by Prigogine to a well-known book of his). The great minds behind the classical revolution of natural science, Galileo and Kepler, were unanimous in their assent to these words: ubi extensio, ibi materia, ibi geometria, where there is extension there is also matter and geometry. The same stand was taken by Descartes who was unable to make his analytic geometry relevant to physics without calling upon an aether-theory. This is also the reason why I can imagine a secret conspiracy between realists and formalists, between aether theorists and spacetime geometricians: both parties view time as mere illusion, and both parties wants to exclude it from serious consideration and analysis.

(Zitatende)

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Beste Grüße Ekkehard Friebe